Brown v. Board of Education, which ended legally sanctioned segregation in American public schools,
brought issues of racial equality to the forefront of the nation’s
attention. Beyond its repercussions for the educational system, the
decision also heralded broad changes to concepts of justice and national
identity. “Brown v. Board” and the Transformation of American Culture
examines the prominent cultural figures who taught the country how to
embrace new values and ideas of citizenship in the aftermath of this
groundbreaking decision.

Through the lens of three cultural “first responders,” Ben Keppel
tracks the creation of an American culture in which race, class, and
ethnicity could cease to imply an inferior form of citizenship.
Psychiatrist and social critic Robert Coles, in his Pulitzer
Prize–winning studies of children and schools in desegregating regions
of the country, helped citizens understand the value of the project of
racial equality in the lives of regular families, both white and black.
Comedian Bill Cosby leveraged his success with gentle, family-centric
humor to create televised spaces that challenged the idea of whiteness
as the cultural default. Public television producer Joan Ganz Cooney
designed programs like Sesame Street that extended educational
opportunities to impoverished children, while offering a new vision of
urban life in which diverse populations coexisted in an atmosphere of
harmony and mutual support.

Together, the work of these pioneering figures provided new codes of
conduct and guided America through the growing pains of becoming a truly
pluralistic nation. In this cultural history of the impact of Brown v.
Board, Keppel paints a vivid picture of a society at once eager for and
resistant to the changes ushered in by this pivotal decision.